


The Scar You Gave Me

by ClareGuilty



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Mild Gore, Omnic Crisis, SEP era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 09:31:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17221364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClareGuilty/pseuds/ClareGuilty
Summary: Jack did a much better job of carrying on. Pretending like he wasn’t a bomb waiting to go off. He sucked up to the brass like usual, obeyed every order like usual. The only thing that Gabe noticed was different were his eyes. The light in Jack’s eyes had gone out.Gabe was a different story. He was unruly, restless, noncompliant. His higher ups couldn’t get him to sit still, couldn’t get him to listen to a word they were saying. He had gone off the rails, taken his command of the SEP unit and run. What could they do, anyways? Turn him off?He imagined he could feel the implant. He barely even knew what it was but he could feel it burning. Right at the junction of his neck and shoulder. He wanted it out.Gabe realizes he and Jack are time bombs, and that the US Military holds the detonator. He takes things into his own hands.





	The Scar You Gave Me

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in one night because I couldn't get rid of the idea. I love SEP and I love Jack and Gabe
> 
> My angsty boys <3

Shit was fucked. That was Gabe’s tactical assessment of the situation. They had no weapons, no ammunition, no comms, no food, no medical supplies, and one canteen of water. He and Jack had been separated from the rest of SEP, chased into the wilderness of the forest by a bunch of OR-13’s and Bastion units. The Omnics weren’t built to navigate the thick underbrush, which allowed the two soldiers to gain several miles of ground in just under 2 hours. They were sure that the Omnics would send some kind of aerial strike into the forest in the next several hours, a way to ensure they didn’t make it out alive.

“Would it be safe to start a fire?” Jack asked, glancing around the clearing they had collapsed in just moments ago. Daylight was fading fast, and it wouldn’t be long before the forest was nothing but cool pitch.

“It’s not a good idea, but if we’re gonna die, I want to at least be warm.” Gabe shrugged. He and Jack set to work building a fire, a difficult task considering the forest floor was still wet from frequent rains. 

Jack nestled into Gabe’s side, under his arm, and tucked his head under his commander’s chin. He offered a piece of pine bark to Gabe, waving it around as if it was a tantalizing dessert. Gabe snorted with derision but accepted the food, tearing a chunk off with his molars and working his jaw as he tried to power through the turpentine taste. Jack had worked his way through quite a bit of the sour bark and was now nodding off against Gabe’s shoulder. It would have been an issue if there was any chance of them surviving this situation, but since death was almost certain, he let Jack sleep.

Gabe and Jack both scrambled awake the the sounds of hover engines, huge ones. Jack had sprung into a crouch about 5 feet away, brandishing a branch as if it would save him from a Bastion unit’s hellfire. Gabe knelt in the soft dirt, peering through the trees at the white-blue beams that cut across the forest. 

“That’s a manned ship,” Gabe called, “They may be on our side.”

He was proved right when the ship touched down about 30 yards away, kicking up leaves and loam and sweeping searchlights through the tree line.

“Soldier 24, Soldier 76 do you copy?” An amplified voice called out. Jack and Gabe exchanged quick looks before jogging towards the airship.

“Soldier 24 reporting in.” Gabe addressed the officer waiting by the ramp. He didn’t even wait for orders, just stalked past the man and took a seat on the low bench in the personnel bay.

“76 right here,” Jack followed suit, giving the officer a hasty salute before settling in beside his commander. “How did they find us?” he hissed.

“I don’t know, but I don’t like it.” Gabe muttered, jaw tight and fists clenched.

“What do you mean? We’re saved.” Jack recoiled in surprise. Gabe had always been more defiant, more willing to go against orders, but he had never expressed outright disdain for the brass, not until this moment. 

Jack had always been too trusting, too willing to follow orders without question. He thanked the crew that had come to pick them up and dragged Gabe to the showers and then to bed the second they returned to base. Gabe didn’t sleep. He spent the whole night staring at the ceiling as Jack drooled on his chest, sound asleep.

Something wasn’t right.

How could the higher ups have found them? They didn’t have any comms, no weapons. He would have known if there was any tech in their armor, that’s the kind of thing a commander needed to know. How had they been found?

It had to be an implant. Something _inside_ their bodies that the government was tracking. He wouldn’t put it past them to stoop so low. He and Jack had already been stripped of their humanity, reduced to nothing more than weapons.

Jack carried on, either ignorant or apathetic of the fact that they had been chipped like animals. Gabe couldn’t let it go so easily.

Why hadn’t they told them about it? Every other procedure had been explained and detailed in a way that Gabe could barely understand, but at least they gave him something. If the government had implanted something in their bodies, why didn’t they know about it?

Jack noticed pretty quickly that something was getting under Gabe’s skin, literally. The commander hadn’t eaten. Wasn’t sleeping. Couldn’t focus. It worried Jack. He relied on Gabe. Depended on him as a commander and a partner. If something was wrong, he needed to know about it.

He pressed Gabe about it, constantly looking at him with those soft blue eyes and a gentle hand on his arm.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he would ask every time.

“Not right now.” Would be the constant reply.

It spilled over all at once. Jack had taken a hit out in the field. Nothing fatal, but a gunshot was never just a walk in the park. He would be in the med bay for at least a week. It wasn’t Gabe’s fault, but he blamed himself. He stalked around the base, glaring at anyone who dared to meet his eye. Almost everyone gave him a wide berth.

The breaking point was a scrawny lab technician--regular sized, but scrawny compared to an SEP soldier-- bumping into Gabe in the corridor.

He snapped. Grabbed the technician by the back of the neck and threw him into the nearest supply closet. 

“How are they able to track our location?” he demanded. He was sick of not knowing. Sick of being afraid of his own shadow. He was supposed to be able to trust the military.

“Y-your comms, sir, they have GPS in them.” The technician stuttered and stumbled over his words, clearly afraid. Gabe slammed him into the shelves, a box of something crashed to the ground inches from their feet.

“That’s not what I’m talking about. How are they able to track us? Is it a chip?” Gabe growled, teeth bared inches from the man’s face.

“It’s an implant,” the technician squeaked. “We injected it when you first started the program, none of the participants were notified of its existence.”

“What does it do?”

“It tracks your location using satellite GPS, the US Military can locate you anywhere in the world. It tracks your vitals and reports them back for monitoring at a remote site, and…” He looked at the floor.

“And?” Gabe gripped harder, fingers threatening to snap the technicians collarbone. 

“And they serve as a fail safe. The implant can be triggered to deactivate a participant in the event they are captured by enemy forces. It prevents intelligence from being leaked.”

“ _Deactivated_?” Gabe sneered, “Like we’re no better than a _fucking Omnic_? Turned off because the military is too lazy to clean up their own messes so they sweep us under the rug just like they do with everything else?” He snarled and pushed himself away from the technician. The smaller man nearly crumbled to the ground. “You’re really fucking twisted. The whole lot of you. I knew this was fucked up but I didn’t know you would stoop just as low as them. This war was supposed to be Humans versus Omnics. Look at the shining glory of humanity.” Gabe slammed the door open, ready to leave the technician in a sobbing heap on the floor.

“Where is it?” Gabe asked at the last moment.

“What?” 

“Where’s the implant?”

“Left trapezius muscle. Same place on every participant.”

Gabe left. He skipped everything he left for the day and took out his anger on the training equipment. The SEP soldiers found out on accident that they had the strength available to destroy the equipment in the on-base gym, but they were advised not to do so.

Gabe trashed it all. Ripped metal fixtures apart and threw 25kg barbell weights through the glass on the observation decks. Who could stop him? He was the strongest of the soldiers. They put him in charge because of that. Their mistake.

Jack found him that night, fuming as he paced back in forth in their bunk. He had worn a path into the floor months ago with his constant journey from the door to the sink and back again, but tonight it was worse.

Jack’s eyes widened in mounting horror as Gabe explained what he had learned.

“Implanted without our permission? And they can just kill us whenever they feel like it?” The younger soldier shook his head in disbelief. Gabe hadn’t been surprised to learn the military was using them as nothing more than weapons. Jack’s world had just been shattered. 

“I thought we were the good guys. I thought they were the good guys.” He placed his head in his hands. Gabe rubbed his back and tried to reassure him.

“We _are_ the good guys. The military and the government are piece of shit war dogs, but _we’re _the ones who are going to win this fight. It’s always been us.” Gabe tried to believe his own words. He had gotten so used to lying to his soldiers.__

___It’s going to be okay. You’re going to make it back home. Everything is fine._ _ _

__Lies._ _

__Jack looked up, terror in his eyes. “Gabe, what happens to us when the war is over? Will they just turn us off?”_ _

__Gabe’s stomach sank. He hadn’t thought that far ahead. Wasn’t in the habit of imagining life after the crisis. Now, he guessed he didn’t have to._ _

__They didn’t sleep that night. Spent the whole night holding each other and failing to start conversations. What could they say?_ _

__Jack did a much better job of carrying on. Pretending like he wasn’t a bomb waiting to go off. He sucked up to the brass like usual, obeyed every order like usual. The only thing that Gabe noticed was different were his eyes. The light in Jack’s eyes had gone out._ _

__Gabe was a different story. He was unruly, restless, non compliant. His higher ups couldn’t get him to sit still, couldn’t get him to listen to a word they were saying. He had gone off the rails, taken his command of the SEP unit and run. What could they do, anyways? Turn him off?_ _

__He imagined he could feel the implant. He barely even knew what it was but he could feel it burning. Right at the junction of his neck and shoulder. He wanted it out._ _

__Jack knew. He watched helplessly as Gabe tore himself apart with the stress. At one point, Jack had hugged him from behind, had wrapped his hands around his waist and brushed kisses over his neck and shoulder. Gabriel had thrown him off, accidentally elbowed him hard enough to bruise a rib._ _

__Jack was scared to touch him. Gabriel was scared to be touched._ _

__What could they do?_ _

__They were back in the woods again. It was the only place they could reliably take cover from Omnic fire, so they ran for the trees every time. This time, Gabe had thrown Jack’s comm into the first body of water they found and turned off his own. He wasn’t going back until he was ready. It was time to start doing things on his own terms._ _

__They made camp on the shore of a lake. Breathless and aching, Jack collapsed against a large rock._ _

__Gabe had other plans._ _

__He stripped off his armor, peeled off his undershirt. He grabbed the knife from his boot._ _

__“I can’t reach it by myself,” Gabe pressed the knife into Jack’s hands, fear and rage in his eyes, “You need to cut it out.”_ _

__Jack protests at first. Says he’s too scared. He doesn’t want to hurt Gabe. But he knows. He knows that if the implant doesn’t come out, Gabe will die, one way or another._ _

__So he makes Gabe hold his belt between his teeth and he massages his left trapezius until he thinks he feels something._ _

__Jack isn’t used to stabbing his friends. Especially not this carefully. But he digs the knife in, unsure and unsteady as he does his best to help Gabriel. It isn’t a clean process. Isn’t an easy one. A trickle of blood slides over Gabe’s shoulder blades and he grunts around his belt as Jack pulls the implant from Gabe’s flesh. He places it on the rock and smashes it with the hilt of the knife, pummeling the tiny pill into dust before helping Gabe patch up his shoulder._ _

__Gabe is pulling his shirt back on, back turned to Jack. The blonde can see the gauze and tape disappear beneath the dark fabric. He undoes the clasps of his chest plate._ _

__When Gabe turns around, he is shocked to she Jack shirtless, pressing the bloody knife back into Gabe’s hands. His eyes are pleading, desperate as Gabe takes the blade back._ _

__“Do mine next.”_ _

**Author's Note:**

> Help me become Twitter famous
> 
> Or come yell at me on Tumblr


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